


cold moon, long night's moon

by ourseparatedcities



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Angst, M/M, The Ache in Your Legs Footy Ficathon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-09
Updated: 2015-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-06 20:51:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3148187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ourseparatedcities/pseuds/ourseparatedcities
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fernando Torres returns to Atléti. Nando comes home. </p>
<p>The two are not the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	cold moon, long night's moon

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt, "Our love is like addiction, one I don't want to quit."
> 
> Also because this [gifset](http://footballinmyvains.tumblr.com/post/107435132009/sergio-ramos-and-fernando-torres-before-the-game) (and this [one](http://fuckyeahsernando.tumblr.com/post/107529187322)) made me want to rip off my own face.

He doesn’t even see you at first.

It’ll break you if you let it, so you don’t. You don’t even think about that, then. Because you’re wearing the captain’s armband and you can’t betray that, even when you betray _him_.

You cup the back of his neck and drape yourself over him.

You rip off your gloves first, stuff them inside your pockets so you can feel the soft ridges at the back of his neck. Somehow, this is the thing you feel most guilty about.

You smile at him, wide and carefree, because there’s no face for what you’re feeling right now. You don’t even think there’s a word, or maybe there is but not in any language you know.

Maybe there’s a word in English. Maybe he’s learned the word somewhere along the way because his face doesn’t change.

(Maybe Steven taught him. You know he taught Xabi.)

He looks the same after you embrace him as he did before, placid, unruffled. You hate him a little bit for it.

During the team line-up, he merely clasps your hand, like the only thing you share between you is a sport, a competition. You hate him more. You press your lips to the tiny bump hidden away underneath his ear. It’s invisible, a place you wouldn’t know unless you’ve been here before, searched it with your fingers, your mouth. You remind him that you have. 

He fouls you for it, takes your feet out from underneath you until you bite your lip and the blood surges in your veins, red cheeks and white mouth. He defiles you with his own colors.

You don’t get the hang of it after that. Every move makes your bones creak like old floorboards inside an abandoned house. You suppose that’s the cost of carrying him inside you for seven and a half years. You watch him lope across the field, graceful and light.

It makes you reckless. It makes you want to lash out, only what’s the point of trying to hurt him? It’s simple math, really. A hundred times 0 is still 0.

You drag down someone else, because there’s also a rule about equalities, so if a=b and b=c, then he should be the one crumpling to the ground. You get the answer wrong.

You watch him get subbed off. You suppose it’s only fitting, since leaving is the only thing he’s gotten the hang of.

You lose the game. You don’t wait for him to come back onto the pitch. Maybe you’ve mastered some things too. 

_He_ takes you home, cups the back of your neck and drapes _himself_ over you. You rest your head on _his_ shoulder, close your eyes because you can.

You want to apologize. You want to ask _him_ what it is that _he_ loves about  you because the truth is, you’re not here. You’ve never been here.

You’ve been rustling like autumn leaves inside his lungs. You’ve been aimlessly scattered like freckles onto his skin. You’ve throbbed like a worn-down limb before every big storm in Liverpool and Chelsea and Milan. You haven’t been in Madrid for seven and a half years.

_He_ sleeps with your back against _his_ chest, armed draped over your stomach, holds you lightly. Like _he_ knows and hopes you won’t, but makes it easy for you just in case.

You wish you were a better man.

(He texts you at 2 am, the moon irreverently interrupting the inky flow of the night sky.

_“You didn’t say goodbye.”)_

You are not.

_He_ barely moves when you slip away. _He_ ’s learned things too. (This isn’t the first time for any of you, for any of this. It’s a ferris wheel, everything infinite and dazzling when you’re at the top, but most of the time, you’re just falling and trying to pick yourself back up again.)

You wonder if that’s what you’re supposed to do tonight, say goodbye.

Because when you slam him against the door of some seamy hotel room where no one you know would ever be caught dead, when you drag his arms over his head until he surrenders to your grip, that’s the furthest thing from your mind. Because when he lowers you to the bed with a gentleness that wounds and you search for his mouth, he tastes like all the miles that have kept you apart and you devour them.  Because when he strips you down and his hands take you apart, your body arches into him like it’s still trying to span the immutable distance.

His skin is milk and his hair is honey and you lick at the salt on his shoulder when he climbs onto your lap. Your weary, bitten mouths ghosts over one another, exchange a low, pained sigh when he sinks down onto you. When his nails plant themselves into your back and you can feel drops of blood blooming underneath them, you think, _finally_. You kiss the spot again, suck on it until an angry bruise begins to blink out against his skin. _Finally_.

You can ruin him too.

He’s riding you shamelessly, furiously, obscene groans and the rhythmic, filthy roll of his hips. You grip them, dig your thumbs into the space between, hold him there until you come inside of him. Your hand slaps his away to jerk him off faster, your other hand reaching up to pinch a nipple and he comes with your name spilling messily from his tongue. You bury your face against his throat, replace the sweat you stole earlier with the tears dragging heavily at the edge of your eyelashes.

You shower before you leave.

You shower alone.

He’s sitting on the bed, a pile of tissues beside him and his shirt crooked, tucked inside itself at the waist.

“Say it, then.”

He peers up at you, dark eyebrows furrowed, mouth slack and it’s a wink of the boy you first met, shared victories and gentle kisses with.

“What?”

You hold up your phone. His face clears.

“That’s not why I…” His hands lift helplessly, fall back to his lap.

“Then what?” You wish you had it in you to make your voice cold and cruel, but you just sound exhausted.

“I…”

You frown as you cross to him, pull the shirt out from where it’s caught and pat it down until it falls correctly. You touch his side, turning to leave when he reaches out, circles your wrist with his fingers.

“Before the game, I thought it wouldn’t feel real, like home, until I played at the Calderón,” he tells you, voice more fragile than a feather. “Then I did, and we won, and it still didn’t…”

You meet his eyes as he adds,

“It wasn’t home.”

He looks as lost as you felt every time you watched him play for a team that wasn’t yours. He can’t say the rest, but you feel it. You know.

You mean to kiss him in farewell, but he slips his arms around your waist and presses his cheek into your stomach until the words die inside your throat. You run your fingers through your hair because your chest is aching with his pain and you suppose that’s what this is. That’s all this is.

You kiss his temple, smooth the hair out of his eyes.

“Goodnight, Nando.”

At the door, you turn to look at him as he lifts himself gingerly from the bed, like it’s an effort. Like a house sagging beneath the weight of all the lives it carries.

 

**Author's Note:**

> the whole time i was writing this, all i could think was, "but they're not even my otp!" but feels are merciless and apathetic when they strike, and those gifsets destroyed me, so here we are. 
> 
> thank you for reading! if you leave comments, you are the loveliest peach. 
> 
> (s/n: just in case, _he_ is Iker, he is Fernando.


End file.
